Even though December has started and the shelves of Tel Aviv’s bakeries are lined with sufganiot, the jelly donuts traditionally eaten during Hanukkah, many of Tel Aviv’s residents are still walking around in tank tops and sandals. Unusually hot days and sunny skies have made it easy for the masses to pretend that summer never ended. But for those of us who follow the dance field, there is no denying that the calendar year is coming to a close. The tip-off is in the posters and fliers on display at Suzanne Dellal as well as the press releases and invitations received via e-mail, all announcing the arrival of the annual showcase of Israeli dance: International Exposure.

Nimrod Freed’s Flash. Photo by Itamar Freed.

The exact shape and scope of International Exposure have shifted since its first incarnation sixteen years ago. For many years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it operated in conjunction with Curtain Up, the country’s premiere platform for new works by independent choreographers. The festival has stretched over a varying number of days and welcomed crowds both intimate and large. But throughout, the goal has remained the same: to display the wealth of works premiered over the past year to foreign arts presenters, dignitaries, and journalists in the hopes of sending Israeli dance around the world.

Orly Portal’s Gnawia

International Exposure 2010 will run from Wednesday, December 8 through Sunday, December 12, and the schedule features an enticing array of established companies and independent choreographers. Most of the programs will take place at the Suzanne Dellal Centre, but a number of concerts and informal showings will take place at other performance venues and studios. And while some of the events are offered only to the festival’s guests, many of the shows are open to the public. Below is a guide to the events that are accessible to local dance lovers (and a sneak peek at International Exposure for those of you who are not in town). All shows are at Suzanne Dellal unless otherwise noted.

Wednesday, December 8

Thursday, December 9

Rami Be’er’s Transform. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

International Exposure’s first full day kicks off at 11:00 with the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Rami Be’er’s new Transform, which premiered during the international Tel Aviv Dance festival this past fall.

Curtain Up 2010 will be represented by three separate bills shown at 16:00, 19:00, and 22:30.

Video: Tamar Borer and Tamara Erde’s Ana

Thursday’s offerings also include a performance of Tamar Borer and Tamara Erde’s latest collaboration, Ana, at 20:30.

Friday, December 10

Friday’s programming includes a fair amount of moving about to different theaters in the area.

Video: The Project in Jacopo Godani’sLight Years.

At 14:00, The Project – a joint initiative by the Suzanne Dellal Centre and the Israeli Opera – will present a mixed bill at the Opera House in the heart of Tel Aviv. The program includes Emanuel Gat’s Through the Center, Jacopo Godani’s Light Years, and Marco Goeke’s Supernova.

Video: Vertigo in Mana

Vertigo Dance Company presents a hit from last year, Mana, at the Givatayim Theater at 17:00. Choreographed by Noa Wertheim, Mana premiered during the twentieth anniversary of the Curtain Up festival.

Video: Maria Kong in Miss Brazil

Maria Kong reprises its program from the Tel Aviv Dance festival, Miss Brazil, at 21:00 at Suzanne Dellal. The company’s four founders – Anderson Braz, Talia Landa, Leo Lerus, and Ya’ara Moses – collaborated on the first half of the bill, Miss, while guest choreographer Idan Cohen contributed the second half, Brazil.

Saturday, December 11

Saturday is primarily a day of mixed bills, titled Exposures, that feature both shorter dances in their entirety alongside excerpts from full-evening works.

Video: Yoram Karmi’s Particle Accelerator

Exposure 1, at 11:00, features Fresco Dance Group in an excerpt from the evening-length Particle Accelerator. The bill is rounded out by Rachel Erdos’s OU’.

Video: Rachel Erdos’s OU’

Odelya Kuperberg’s Tzitzushka.

At 13:00, Exposure 2 will include Odelya Kuperberg’s Tzitzushka and a new work from Idan Sharabi.

On Sunday, October 31st, the Fresco Dance Company, with artistic direction and choreography by Yoram Karmi, performed their newest and most critically acclaimed work, Particle Accelerator, at the Suzanne Dellal Center to a completely full house. All aspects of the performance were outstanding and made a lasting impression on the audience.

The theme of technology, acknowledged in the title, remained consistent throughout the work, which also explored human relationships and emotion. The use of the stage, particularly the stage elevator, created an industrial setting and contributed to a captivating duet dealing with the opposition between technology and the desire to feel human emotion. Throughout the piece, the use of simple daily actions contrasted the high-energy movement and provided insight into human tendencies and desires. For example, the piece began with a single dancer vacuuming the stage, embodying the frustration with run-down technology. Later, during a “lunch break” in the middle of the work, the dancer amplified the feeling of loneliness by attempting to converse with a dummy. The contrast between moments of human emotions embodied in beautifully choreographed duets and solos versus the uniformity and precise movement of the entire group helped to develop an engaging and thoughtful theme.

Also exceptional in the performance was the intricate movement vocabulary executed with precise technique by the dancers. With a few new cast members since the premiere of the work, including dancers Britian Jackson and Sela Freed, the company worked together in skillful unison and generated an exciting energy easily shared with the audience. The movement incorporated challenging ballet vocabulary mixed with original and detailed choreography, creating a delightful and captivating performance.

Upcoming Performances

The Fresco Dance Company will be performing Particle Accelerator again at the Suzanne Dellal Center on December 11th at 11:00 a.m. as a part of the International Exposure festival. Tickets can be purchased at the box office: 03-5105656.

There will also be another performance on December 22nd at the Holon Theatre at 8:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the box office: 03-5023001.

About the Author

Lindsay Reich was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois in the northern suburbs of Chicago. She spent her childhood studying dance at Fisher Dance Center in ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, hip hop and tap. She continued her study of dance and environmental studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she began choreographing and developing many projects. Since arriving in Israel after graduation, she has held contact improvisation workshops at Kfar Sagol Eco-Village and will be teaching dance classes at the Ariel School in Hod HaSharon. The Ariel School offers classes in all forms of artistic expression, please call for more information: 09-7604567 or 052-6554629.

The Batsheva Dance Company’s dancers might have cooled off at the beach to make this video, but this July, they – and many of Israel’s finest dancers – will be heating up the Suzanne Dellal Center’s stages during SummerDance 2010. The annual festival, called Maholohet in Hebrew (a play on the words for “dance” and “hot”), will take place from July 1-August 31 and boast 84 performances.

Nuevo Ballet Español. Photo courtesy of Ora Lapidot PR.

This year’s programming kicks off with a festival within the festival. From July 1-10, Madrid Dance will showcase Spanish dance including the Antonio Najarro Dance Company, Nuevo Ballet Español, Sharon Friedman and Jesus Pastor, and Pastor and José Marino. More international guests arrive later in the summer with dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet performing their own creations in Incidence Choreographique and with the Black Light Theatre from Prague in Africania.

For audiences who missed some of this year’s most intriguing premieres, SummerDance offers a second chance to check them out. Among the offerings are Arkadi Zaides’sQuiet, which recently returned from a tour of Europe, as well as the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Rami Be’er’s Infrared, Fresco Dance Group in Yoram Karmi’s Particle Accelerator, Kamea Dance Group in Tamir Ginz’s SRUL, Kolben Dance Company in Min-Hara, and Animato Dance Company in Nadine Bommer’s American Cinema. Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak’sRushes Plus and Ohad Naharin’s Kyr/Z/na 2010, both highlights of the last season, combine excerpts of older works in a strikingly new context. And Vertigo Dance Company presents not only its recent hit Mana but also White Noise and the now classic Birth of the Phoenix.

Batsheva Dancers Create. Photo by Yoav Barel.

Several evenings pop out from the schedule with a mixture of interesting fare. This year’s festival includes Batsheva Dancers Create, an annual workshop featuring two programs of Batsheva’s dancers in an array of their own choreography. Another intriguing evening is Noa Dar’s presentation of her recent Anualongside a work-in-progress, Banu, which is the extension of her previous creation. And audiences will have a chance to sample a combination of choreographers when established artists host up-and-coming contemporary choreographer. These programs include Dana Ruttenberg and Shlomit Fundaminsky hosting Neta Ruttenberg and Uri Shafir; Sahar Azimi hosting Elad Shechter and Yaniv Cohen; Dafi Altebab hosting Mami Shimizaki; and Idan Cohen hosting Sharon Vazanna.

SummerDance 2010 also features several companies and choreographers that add an ethnic flavor to the Israeli concert dance scene. Beta Dance Troupe blends Ethiopian traditions with contemporary choreography in Meeka Yaari and Ruth Eshel’s Fathers and Sons as well as Adam McKinney and Daniel Banks’s What We are Saying. Rona Bar-On, Sigal Ziv, and Elina Pechersky bring belly dance to the stage, while COMPAS, Silvia Duran, and Tania Vinokur offer variations on flamenco. Adding to the mix is Bangoura, an African dance company that will perform The dance of the drums.

Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Kamuyot. Photo by Gadi Dagon.

Want to attend a dance performance with your family? Several family-friendly programs are dotting this year’s bill, including the Batsheva Ensemble in Ohad Naharin’s Kamuyot, Kamea Dance Group in Or Abuhav’s The Ugly Duckling, COMPAS in Carmen and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Noa Dar Dance Group in Children’s Games.

Rounding out the programming are several critically acclaimed works created in recent years, including Yasmeen Godder’s Singular Sensation and Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s Four Men, Alice, Bach and the Deer, and evenings of work by independent choreographers including Iris Erez, Shlomi Frige, Maya Levy, Michael Miler, and Michal Herman.

Video: LINES Ballet in Alonzo King’s Rasa, whichwill be part of the Israel Festival.

Spring festival fever has hit Israel. The Big Stage Festival is in full swing at Suzanne Dellal in Tel Aviv. There’s many Shavuot festivals planned around the country, and several of them focus on dance and movement. And from May 24th to June 11th, the Israel Festival will bring world-renowned performing artists in all disciplines to Jerusalem.

The Israel Festival has been a mainstay of the spring festival season since its founding in 1961, though its character has evolved over time. From its roots as a music festival in Caesarea, the event expanded to include theater and dance. The Israel Festival moved most of its performances to Jerusalem in 1982, and it remains there today.

Although it bears this country’s name, the Israel Festival is truly an international event showcasing high-quality art from both in and out of Israel. A quick survey of this year’s dance offerings alone yields four different countries from three different continents (and that’s besides Israel!).

Michael Miler’s The Speed of Light will be performed in program 1 of Shades of Dance. Photograph by Eyal Landesman.

Last Saturday night was chilly and wet, but despite the discouraging weather conditions, I bundled up and trekked down to the Suzanne Dellal Center. Choreographer Micheal Miler of Haifa’s Sigma Ensemble had invited me to a rehearsal for the Shades of Dance festival (called Gvanim in Hebrew). Shades of Dance is mounted biennially, and since last year was an off year, I had effectively been waiting to attend the festival for over a year and a half. A little rain wasn’t about to stop me from this special sneak peak.

Since its inception in 1984, Shades of Dance has showcased artists who are relatively fresh to the field of choreography. It has helped launch the careers of some of Israel’s best-known choreographers including Yasmeen Godder, Inbal Pinto, Emanuel Gat, Ronit Ziv, Barak Marshall, Renana Raz, Shlomi Bitton, Anat Danieli, Itzhik Galili, Sally-Anne Friedland, Yossi Yungman, Tamar Borer, Liat Dror and Nir Ben-Gal of Adama, Noa Wertheim and Adi Sha’al of Vertigo Dance Company, and Yoram Karmi of Fresco Dance Group.

Perhaps this is why my anticipation of this festival feels different: I can’t help but wonder what new choreographic voices will be revealed this year. A mind-boggling 80 dances were submitted to the festival’s selection committee, composed of artistic director Hanoch Ben Dror with Ya’ara Dolev, Sally-Anne Friedland, Renana Raz, and Niv Sheinfeld. I’m looking forward to seeing what sets the 10 chosen works apart from their competition when the 15th Shades of Dance festival opens this week.